Methane gas bubbles under permafrost

Scorching March brings Arctic temperatures up to 20°F warmer than normal.

This
discovery is especially worrisome for three reasons. First, methane
traps 86 times as much heat as CO2 over a 20-year period. Thawing
permafrost creates both CO2 and methane (CH4), but most models of
thawing permafrost assume only CO2 is created. If, as it appears, a
lot of methane is being generated, then we’ll see even more extra
warming than scientists have projected.

Second,
a recent
study found
global warming will defrost much more permafrost than we thought.Third, the permafrost has
already been warming at an alarming rate. In general, the Arctic
warms twice as fast as the planet as a whole.

Last
summer saw “an abnormally warm summer in 2016 on the Yamal
peninsula” of Siberia where many of these bubbles have been
found, notedthe
Russian Academy.

But
in March, Siberia again saw stunning temperatures, according to
NASA’s latest
monthly report.
Globally, it was the second hottest March on record, losing out only
to March 2016. Parts of Siberia and the Arctic were as much as 12.1°C
(22°F) above the 1951–1980 average.

Finally,
you may be wondering if the United States has any of these methane
land mines, what are called “exploding” or “alternative”
pingos. (A regular pingo is
“mound of earth-covered ice,” so they don’t generally explode.)

Vladimir
E. Romanovsky,
a permafrost decay expert at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks,
told the Washington
Post that
the methane-filled alternate pingos are “definitely related to
warming,” and could appear in Canada or Alaska.

“It
is just a matter of time when some of those craters appear in North
America as well,” Romanovsky said. Already, several pingos have
emerged “right under the Alaskan pipeline,” the scientist said.
If one of those bulges turned out to be an alternative pingo, that’s
not good news, either